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The Origin of the Term "Image"Author(s): Ray FrazerSource: ELH, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Jun., 1960), pp. 149-161Published by: Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2871916Accessed: 10-11-2015 19:27 UTC

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THE ORIGIN OF

THE TERM

"

IMAGE"

BY RAY

FRAZER

"

Image

"

is

one of

the

most common-and

ambiguous-terms

in

modern

iterary

riticism.

Brooks

and

Warrendefine

t

as

"

the

representation

npoetry f

any sense

experience."

Another

and-

book

defines

t

as "a mental

picture

evoked

by

the

use

of

metaphors,

imiles

nd

other

figures

f

speech."

In his

new

Art

ofPoetry,Hugh Kennersays that imagesare " what the words

actually name

";

an

image

is

"

a

thing

the

writer

names

and

introduces

ecause its

presence

n

the

piece

of

writing

will

release

and

clarify

meaning."

There

are

thus

at least

three

bases for

definition:

n

image may be

that

which s

sensuous,

r

figurative,

or

particularlymeaningful.

Nor

does

image

have a

syntactic

dimension. t

may

be

a

word,

phrase,

clause,

a

sentence even

a

whole

poem

(e.g., Pound's "In a

Station of

the

Metro").

It maybe a noun, djective, dverb or verb. It maybe a simple

term,

uch as

"

a

dome,"

or t

may be

a

complex

et of

terms, uch

as

"

Life, like a

dome of

many-coloured

lass,/Stains

he

white

radianceof

Eternity."

Yet

the term

originallymeant

no more

than

picture, mitation

or

copy.

Thus

it was in the

Renaissance,

nd when

we

speak of

Spenser's

picturesquemagery or

Donne's

"

powerful

magery

we are

using

a

term

unknown o

them. In

thecritical

vocabulary

of the period-that of classical rhetoric nd logic-therewas a

special term

(Icon)

whichmeant a

pictureof

something,

nd a

general

concept

(Enargia)

which

meant the

process

of making

the

reader eem

to see

something. hese

were

dutifully

mentioned

by

such

derivative

writers

s

Puttenham,

but with

nothing

ike

the

frequencyhat

we

wouldexpect.

The

Renaissance

poet,

whose

1

Understanding

oetry New

York,

1938),

p.

633;

Dan S.

Norton

and

Peters

Rushton,

A

Glossary of

Literary

Terms

(New

York,

1941), p.

32;

Art

of

Poetry

(New

York,

1959), p. 38. Kenneralso speaks of an " unstated mage"-which is presumablywhat

the

words

don't

actually

name.

Ray Frazer

149






work was characteristically

o full of

imagery,

didn't think

of

himself

s

using any.

What

he did

think n terms f was "

figures

-the techniques

of expression.

As ProfessorRosemond Tuve

has

shown,2

he

fusion f ogicand rhetoricn theRenaissanceprovided complex

and subtletheory

f

poetry

n which he

poet

was

conceived

s a

"maker,"

a

fashioner.

His

tools

were the

Aigures,

he

nearly

numberless

ways

and

fashions

of

molding language.

A

good

poem-that

is to

say,

an

"

artificial

poem-could

be

completely

described

n termsof

figures.

A

poem's

structure

might

be

one

figure;

ts

logical progression nother;

its sentence

structure

another; nd its phrasing,anguage, nd

even

spelling,

tillothers.

Miss Tuve pointsout thatnearlyeverycriticalvalue, including

our

own

originality,

ichness r

tension,

an

be

found

n the

ogical-

rhetorical ystem,but its

chiefvalue

was surely

technical:

the

poet,

the

maker,

was

to

be

praised

for

his

technical

virtuosity.

But

technical

virtuosity

was to

become

suspect

in the later

seventeenth

entury;

artificial was to take on

a

pejorative

meaning; he employment

f

figures

ame

to be

thought

f

as a

sort

of

dishonest ampering

with

the truth.

As

poems

themselves

became essrhetorical,rgumentative,ententious, idactic, o the

terminology

f

criticism

hanged.

The

curiously rgentdemand

for

"

perspicuity"

after

1660,

whether he result

of

the

French

classical influence

n the

court

of

Charles

II,

the new science,

philosophic mpiricism,

he reaction

gainst religious nthusiasm

(or

all of these

together),

expressed tselfchiefly

n

a hostility

towardsrhetoric, owardsfigures,nd

particularly

owards

meta-

phor.

The

proscription

f rhetoric

roscribed he chief

critical

vocabulary

of the

past. Image was one of the termsto

fill the

vacuum.

Modern

suspicion

f

propaganda,profound hough t

may be,

seems

thin

n

comparison

o

the

suspicionof language tself

held

by

the

people

of

the Restoration. n

almostparanoiac rritation,

writer fterwriter

ccusedhis mediumof an inherent uplicity.

Although

acon

early nthe century ad called the studyofwords

rather han things the first istemper f learning," t was

not

until 1660 that

this

attitude was widely shared. By then

even

'Elizabethan and

Metaphysical

magery

(Chicago,1947);

cf.

W. G.

Crane,

Wit and

Rhetoric

n the

Renaissance

(New

York,

1937),

and

Sister

Miriam

Joseph,

hakespeare.

Use

of

the Arts

of

Language (New

York, 1947).

150

The

Origin

f

the

Tern

"

Image

"'






Jeremy

Taylor

was

converted

to

plainness,

urging

his

fellow

clergymen

o use

only

"

primitive,

nown,

ccustomed

words."

The

famous

passage

in

Sprat's

History

of

the

Royal

Society

calls

for

similar

purity:

"

a

close,

naked,

natural

way

of

speaking."

To Bishop Sprat, the unfortunatetate of the language,with

meaning

so

slippery,

was the

result of the

civil

wars,

Puritan

enthusiasm

nd

the

general

ocial

chaos of the

Interregnum;

t

is

only

"now,

when

mens

minds

are

somewhat

ettled,"

that

the

reformation

an

take

place.

But

if

anguage

tself

was

shifty,

igurative

anguage

was

totally

dishonest,

nd

metaphor

not

be

borne.

Sprat called

metaphor

"

a

trick,"

specious,"

eading

to all

sorts of

"

mists

and

uncer-

tainties."A fewyears ater,SamuelParkerarguedseriously for

all

we

know)

that a

law

which

would

forbid

fulsome nd

lushious

Metaphors

would

cure

"

all our

present

Distempers."

Much

of

the

argument

or

plain

style

n

prose

came

from

hose

who

would

reform

he

methods

of

preaching,

ut

even

the

clergymen

who

were

o

simple

hemselves ad

to

deal

with

the

murky

nd

meta-

phorical

Bible:

how

could

the

unplain

anguage

of

God

be jus-

tified?

By

the

nature

f

His

original

udience,

ccording

o

Robert

Boyle.

In

primitive

imes,whenvocabulariesweresmall, meta-phor was considerablymore

necessary

for

communication,

aid

Boyle;

and then

the

fiery

nd

passionate

nature

of

the

Asiatic

races

is

naturally

nclined

to

"

Dark

and

Involv'd

Sentences,"

"Figurative

and

Parabolical

Discourses,"

and

"

Abrupt

and

Maim'd

"

expression.6

t

would

follow

from

his

view

that

for

an

age

preparing o

be

Augustan,

for

a

people

neither

rimitive,

passionate

nor

Asiatic,

metaphor

was

not

only

an

unseemly

dis-

playof

wit,

but

also

a

sort

of

cultural

egression.

Such antagonismowardsmetaphor nd similar igureswas not

limited

o

prose

nor

to

the

years

mmediately

fter

he

Restora-

tion.

To

Hobbes,

there

were

seven

things

which

make

a

poem

excellent,

nd

the

first

wo

of

these

were

perspicuity

f

language

'Quoted from

Taylor's

Rules

and

Advices

to

the

Clergy

by A.

C. Howell

in

his

excellent

ssay

on

this

subject,

"

Res

et

Verba:

Words

and

Things,"

ELH,

XIII

(1946),

187.

See

also

the

essays

by

R.

F.

Jones

n

The

Seventeenth

entury

(Stanford,

951).

'Part

IX,

Section

xx,

in

Critical

Essays

of

the

Seventeenth

Century,

ed.

J.

E.

Spingarn Oxford, 909), II, 113.'

A

Discourse

of

Ecclesiastical

Politie

(London,

1670),

p.

76.

Some

Considerations

Touching

the

Style

of

the

Holy

Scriptures

(London,

1661),

pp.

30-38,

166.

Ray

Frazer

151






and

perspicuity

f

style-i. e.,

the avoidance

of

figures.

Davenant

thought

he

figures

f

speech

to be the lowest

evel of

refinement

in

language;

they

should

not

be

used

in

poetry.

Pope's

friend

George

Granville,

o

late

as

1701, expressed

he

same

view:

But

Poetry n Fiction

akes

Delight,

And Mounting

p in Figures ut

of

Sight,

Leaves Truthbehind

n

her audacious

Flight;

Fables and

Metaphors hatalways

ie,

And

rash

Hyperboles,hatsoar

so

high,

And

every

Ornamentf Verse,must

die.7

And

Pope's

own

Peri Bathous

is

primarily

n attack on

the

absurdity

f

far-fetched etaphors.

The

decline

n

the

reputation

ofCowleyand Donne is an index to these attitudes.

The

neo-classic

disinclination

o

be

deceived

and

unwillingness

to

suspend

disbeliefblinded

the

age

to much of the

power

of

Renaissance

poetry

nd

to

all of

the

theory

ehind

t.

Rhetoric,

which at

the

time of

Shakespeare

had included

most

of

the art

of

logic,had been

split by Ramus;

the

Ramistic

rhetorics

which

appeared

n

the

seventeenth entury ealt

only with

elocution

-the

ornamentation nd decoration

of a

previously rganized

expression.Whattheyperceived o be thenature fcontemporary

rhetoric ooks (such as

The

Mysterie of Rhetorique

Unvail'd

[1657])

Restoration eaders

ssumedto be the

nature of

subject

itself. Rhetoric

to them

was a kind of black

art, a

hangover

from

he

scholasticDark Ages, a

systematic

rogramof decep-

tion

whichcovered

honest

"

things with

doubtful

words."

Its

unpopularity as

such thattherewere

virtually o

rhetoric

books

publishedfrom

the

Restorationto the

later

eighteenth

century.

When Blair and

Campbell

did

publishbooks of

rhetoric

theydefined hesubjectas " criticism,"nd themselves s critics.

Blair

was anxious to

dissociate

himself romthe old

fashioned

system f

rhetoric ecause of the many

"

prejudices" against

t

in

his

day:

A

sort of art is

immediately

hought f, that is

ostentatious nd

deceitful;he

minute nd triflingtudy

f words

lone; the pompof

expression;hestudied

allacies f

rhetoric;rnamenttudied

n the

room f

use....8

7

"An

Essay

Upon Unnatural

Flights

n

Poetry," n

Spingarn,

ll,

292-293.

8

Lectures

on

Rhetoric

nd

Belles

Lettres

1762]

(Philadelphia,

1849),

p.

10; this

was

one of

many

nineteenth

entury

eprints.

The

Origin

f

the

Term

"

Image

"'






Needless

to

say,

"

figures

are handled

rather

gingerly y

these

new critics.

Blair,

for

xample,

s

not

quite

sure

which

re

figures

of

words,

which

of

thoughts;

he calls

the former

tropes."

The

whole lassical

ystem

as somehow aded

out of

knowledge.

Lord

Kames, in his Elementsof

Criticism,

can actuallysay that the

ancients had

no

precise

criterion or

distinguishing

ropes

from

plain

language."'

But

although

t

was

the

hair-splitting

cholastic

distinctions

f

rhetoric

which

annoyed the

eighteenth

entury

writers

Kames

thoughtthem

"trash"),

the

new

analyses

were

just

as

com-

plicated.

Kames finds

wenty-sevenifferent

arieties

f

"

meto-

nymy,"

which

he calls

by

various

names. And

Campbell,

qually

anxiousto simplifyndgeneralize,ndsupwith everalminorypes

of

two

main kinds

f

lassical

"

synechdoche

-good

and

bad. It is

good when

poet

substitutes

he

ess

general

or

he

more

general,

but

"

obstructive

o

vivacity

whenhe

does the

opposite.

What

has

happened s a

change

n

interest

rom

he

writer o

the

reader,

from n

analysis

of

the

technique

f

expression

o

an

analysis of

the

nature f

the

response.

t was

the

processof

substitution

nd

the

typeof

relation

between

erms

which

nterested

he

classical

rhetorician;

othe

eighteenth

entury

ritic

figurative

anguage

(the new, ess preciseterm) is evaluated according o its effect

on

the

reader.

With

such

terms

s

"

figure

and

"

metaphor

misunderstood

or

mistrusted,

here

was

roomfor

new

terminology.

ut

before

new

term

an

come

into

vogue

there

must be

a

particular

need

for

t:

something

ew in

poetry

which

t

can

defineor

a new

way

of

looking at

poetry

which

it can

express.

For

example,

Eliot's

"

objective

orrelative

is a

definition

f

his

new

technique;

our useof" myth is required y a newwayof ooking t poetry.

Like

the

term

"

organic

form,"

which

both

described

Romantic

poetryand

represented

omantic

attitudes,

he

term

"

image

seems

to

have

developed

as

a

resultof

both

causes.

The

epis-

temology f

Hobbes

and the

psychologyf

the

associationists

ed

to a

new

way

of

looking t

poetry.

To

Hobbes,

the

image

was

the

connecting

ink

between

xperience

nd

knowledge-of

funda-

mental

mportance.

And

there

was

something

ew

in

poetry:

the

descriptive nature poetry ftheeighteenthenturys charac-

teristically

ull

of

visual

images,

nd

the

dominant

metaphorical

9 First

published n

1762;

in

the

edition

of

1805,

II,

185.

Ray

Frazer






mode-personification-is

itself

pictorial.

Inoculation,

in

be-

coming

heavenlymaid,

becomes

n

image.

Hobbes'

sensationalist

heory

brought

the term

image

into

common se

and

magnified

ts

importance

n the creative

process

and the aesthetic xperience.His epistemology,s categorically

set

down

n

the first

nd

second

hapters

f

the

Leviathan, mpha-

sized

the

sense

origin

f

all

knowledge.

Sensations,

he

said,

were

registered

n

themind in

"

images

;

an

object

perceived

aused

an

impression

r

print

which

ould

convey

he

dea of

the

subject

to

the mind.

Hobbes also formulated

he

theory

f the

"

fancy,"

or

magination,

s

a

vast

storehouse

fall

past

sense

mpressions

r

images.

Although

Hobbes,

and later

Locke,

derogated

he

power

ofthe maginationo perceive imilaritiesand hence similes nd

metaphors)

in

favor of

the

discriminating

nd

distinguishing

power of

the

judgment-although,

n

fact,

neither

Hobbes nor

Locke was

much

interested n

poetry-yet

this

new

theory

had

an

important

ffect

pon

literary

riticism.

So

early

as

1664

Dryden

was a

believer

n

the

Hobbesian

idea

of the

creative

process.

He

speaks

of a

play

long before

t

was

a

play;

when

t was

only

a

confused

mass

of

thoughts,umblingverone anothern the dark;whenthe fancy

was

yet

n

ts

first

ork,

moving

he

sleeping

mages

f

things

oward

the

ight, here

o be

distinguished,

nd

then

ither

hosen

r

rejected

by

the

udgment.'

Three

years

later

Dryden

used

Hobbes'

familiar

figure:

"the

faculty f

maginationn

a

writer

. .

like a

nimble

paniel,

beats

over

and

ranges

through

he

field

of

memory,

ill it

springs he

quarry

hunted after."

As

the

eighteenth

entury

progressed,

thespanielwas seento operate nparticularways,connectingne

image

with another

by

contiguityn

time

or space,

by

cause

or

effect,

nd so

on,'2

but

the

principal

conception

remained

the

same:

the

poet's

creative

power

ies

in

his

"

imagination,"

hat s,

in

the

richness

with

which

his

otherwiseblank

mind has

been

covered

by

the

"images

"

of

his

experience.

Although

we

do

learn

bysmell,

aste

and

touch,

ur

primary

ource f

knowledge-

1

n

his

dedication

f

The Rival

Ladies,

Works,

d.

Sir

Walter

Scott

and

rev.

George

Saintsbury Edinburgh, 882-1892), I, 1929-30.

'

"An

Account

of

the

Ensuing

Poem

[Annus

Mirabili],"

Works,

X,

95.

2

For a full

account of

the

associationist

critics, ee

Gordon

McKenzie,

Critical

Responsiveness

Berkeley,

1949).

154

The

Origin

f

the

Term

"image"






and therefore

he most

powerful

mode of communication-is

visual.

Addison

wrote n the

Spectator 411),

" We cannot ndeed

have a single mage

in

the

fancy

that

did not make its

first

appearance through

he sight."

Addisonwas writing ot about thecreativeprocess,but about

the aesthetic pleasures

of the

imagination."

According

o

the

theoryof the association

of

ideas,

the

appreciation

of

art

was

the

exact

reversal

of

its creation:

the reader's

spaniel

followed

the writer's ack through

he fieldof

memory.

The

poet

would

naturally think

in terms of

images, and

the reader would

as

naturally espond o them.

The

popularity

f the Horatian

tag,

ut

picturapoesi.s,

s an indication f the

ubiquity

of these

deas.

The ReasonwhyDescriptionsmake iveliermpressionsn common

Readers

hanany other

artsof

a

Poem,

s because

they

re

form'd

of deas drawn rom heSenses,

which

s

sometimes

oocall'd

maging,

and

are thus, n a

manner,ike Pictures,made Objects

of

the Sight;

whereasmoral houghts

nd Discourses,onsistingf deas abstracted

from ense,operate lower

nd with ess Vivacity.

So

wroteJohn

Hughes

n

1735.13

So

felt

JohnGildon,

ome

years

before,

whenhe

praised

the

"

perfect icture ofa poet,

"

setting

before heMind an Image," on the grounds hat " the framing

of admirable

mages"

was the main

business of

poetry.1" o it

was

throughouthe

century: o Daniel Webb,

n

1762,

"

the prin-

cipal

Beauties

in

Poetry springfrom he force r elegance of its

Images ";

in

the same

year

Blair wrote hat

"

the

highest xertion

of

genius

is to be found

n

descriptivemagery;

n

1770 William

Duff isted the

power

of magery s one of the fourgreat talents

of the

"

originalGenius."

5

For these ater writers

mageryhad

some of the

complexity

f

meaning which belongs

to it today,

but its primarymeaningwas stillthat of a vivid " picture or

description,

aised

to

higher ignificance y its epistemological

function.

As a critical

erm,

mage,we may say, s thus partly product

of

the

new

way

of

ooking t poetry, he new aesthetics

f sensa-

tionalism.

But it

was also a very necessaryterm

for the new

poetry,

for the

only

new

genre of the neo-classic

period, the

iS

Poems on SeveralOccasions, I, 830.

1'

Complete

Art of

Poetry

(London,

1718), p.

55.

1 Remarks

on the

Beauties

of

Poetry,p.

69;

Lectures,p.

452; Critical

Observations

on . . .

the

Most

Celebrated

Original

Geniuses

n

Poetry,p.

839.

Ray

Frazer

155






descriptive

oem. Poems

descriptive

f

naturewere

not

unknown

before

he

eighteenth

entury,

ut

they

differed

rom he

later

type

n

intention, one

and structure.

Dear stream dearbank where ftenHave sat and

pleased

my

pensive ye

.

.

.

wrote

Henry

Vaughan

in

"

The

Waterfall,"

but

unlike,

say,

Wordsworth,

e

had

gone

to nature to finda

series

of

intricate

parallels

between he scene

before

him

and the

faith

within. And

Marvell's

"

The

Garden,"

hough

t marks

(as someonehas

said)

a

change

in

the

basic color of

English

poetry,

s still a

logical,

rhetorical

oem,full

of

wit:

"

Two

Paradises twere n

one/To

ive

inParadisealone."The intention fBen Jonson's To Penshurst

is

to flatter

he

residents

f

that

estate;

its

method s

to call on

all

aspects of

beauty,

peace

and

ease

visible at

Penshurst as

rhetorical

testimony"

of

the

virtuesof

the

Sidneys.

Waller's

poem

on

St.

James's Park

has

a similar

ntention

nd

structure:

the

remodelingob done

there

by

Charles I is

argument f

the

similar

reforms

nd

improvements

waiting

the

countryas a

whole.

The

subjects of

descriptive

oems

kept

getting arger (fromgarden to park to the view from

Cooper's

Hill to

the

whole

of

Windsor

Forest)

until, with

Thomson, the

property o

be

described

was

Nature,

and the

owner

to

be

flattered,

od. But

by

his time

the intentions f

the

descriptive

oems

had

changed

as

well.

Poets

were to be

associationists

f

ideas:

they

reflected,

or,

as T.

S. Eliot has

said,

they

"ruminated."

Denham,

in

Cooper's

Hill,

is

halfway

between

the

neatly

structured

rgu-

mentative

poem

of

the

past and the

associational

meditation

f

the future. There is a logical argumentn the poem,but also,

as

Pope

observed,

the

descriptions

f

places

and

images

raised

by

the

poet are

still

tending

o some

hint,

r

leading

nto

ome

reflection

pon

moral

ife

or

political

nstitution,

uch

n the

same

manner

s

the

real

sight f

such scenes nd

prospects

s

apt

to

give

the

mind

composed

urn,

and

incline

t to

thoughts

nd

contemplations

hat

have

a

relation

to

the

object-"

16

Quoted

y

Earl

R.

Wasserman

n

The

Subtler

anguage

Baltimore,

959),

p.

46.

Wassermaninds n

organic

holeness

n

Cooper's

lH

and

in

Windsor

orest,

which

his

"

narrowly

imited

ritical

erminology

kept

Pope

from

eing

ble

to

describe.

156

The

Origin

f

the

Term

Image

"






In

a

few

years

descriptive

nd reflective

oems

were

tructured

not

by

ogic

ut

by association.

he reaction

gainst

he

Renais-

sance

view

of

art,

against

the

conception

f

the artist

s

a

fashioner

f

elegantly

rtificial

roducts,

s

perhaps

est seen

n

a man ikeYoung,who aid ofhisNightThoughts1742):

As

the

occasion fthis

poem

was

real,

not

fictitious,

o

the

method

pursued

n

t

wasrather

mposed,

y

what

pontaneously

rose n

the

author's ind

n that

ccasion,

hanmeditated

r

designed.

.

As

the

intention

nd

structure f the

descriptive-reflective

poems

hanged, o

did the

use of

magery.

n the

Renaissance,

descriptionsf

natural

bjects

were

lmost

lways

heminor

erms

offigures,llustrationsrexamples:na word,hetoolsof ntel-

lectual r

spiritual

rgument.

Shall

compare

hee

oa

summer's

ay?

How

fresh,

Lord,

ow

weet nd

clean

Are

hy

eturns

v'n

as

the

flowers

n

spring....

Like

unto

hese

nmeasurable

ountains

So is

my

painful

ife....

In suchpoetry,hou nd andGodaremoremportanthan he

summer's

ay,

the

flowers

nd

the

mountains.

Herrick's

ittle

lyric

s

not

about

daffodils,

ut

about

a

memento

mori.

The

Renaissance

oet

s

usually

xplicit,nd

the

relationship

e

sees

between

he

mage

nd

the

dea

is

logically

xplained.

ince

his

time

here

as

been a

gradual

hift

way

from

ogic

and

away

from

xplanation:

twentieth

entury

magist

poem

contains

only

he

mage.

Pre-Romantic

nature

oetry

f

he

ighteenth

centurys

a

step n

themodern irection. hough till xplicit,evengarrulous,henature oet s notmerely sing mageryor

some

ogical

urpose,

ut

celebrating

t-or

celebratingis

own

sensitive

esponse

o

it.

Ut

pictura

oesis

till,

ut

the

picture

his

poetry

esembles

s

not

the

Renaissance

mblem

r

allegorical

painting,

ut

the

andscape.

Young

was

suspicious

f

fictitious

poetry,

f a

structure

hatwas

"

meditated

or

"

designed

; a

corollaryf

his

ttitude

as

suspicionf

unnatural

r

untruthful

imagery.

Thus

Joseph

Warton, n

disparaging

ope,

praised

Thompsonor newandoriginalmageswhich epainted rom

17

Works

(Boston, 1907), p.

S.

Ray FrazeT

157






nature

tself and

whichweremore

ruthfulhan the

observations

of

"

poets

who have

only copied

from

ach other."

8

The

novelty

nd

freshness

Warton admiredwas that of visual

images,

literal

pictures: what oft

was

seen

but

ne'er so well

described. But if the termimage were to have kept only its

original

imension f

a

picture

of

something,

set of

descriptive

details, t would have

remained

hiefly pplicable

only

to

a

short-

lived genre

of

poetry.

We might till

speak

of

Thomson's

or

of

Wordsworth's

magery

or

even

that of

Spenser

nd

Keats),

but

the

termwouldn'tbe of

much use

in

relation o

Donne or

Eliot.

However,we also mean

figurative

anguage

when

we say

imagery:

metaphors

nd

similes

re

images

to

us.

The figurative

meaning

of image was first mployedby Dryden,who used the termto

describe

Cowley's

metaphorical

ractice;

9it

was

only

very lowly

picked up by other ritics.

Perhaps

it was first

mployed n

lieu

of

figure r

metaphorbecause those

terms were in

bad

odor,

smacking f scholasticism.

ut there

developed

theoretic

ustifi-

cation

of

the

term n

the

early eighteenth

entury:

a

striking

sensitivity o

sense

impressions

ed

critics

to

believe

that all

devices

of

anguage

were

ssentially

escriptive.

As

Joseph

Trapp

put it in 1711:

Poetry

onsistsmore

n

Description,

han

is

generally

magined.

For,

besides

hose

onger

nd set

Descriptions

f

Things,

laces and

Persons, here

re

numberless

thers,

nobserved

y

common

eaders,

contained

n

one

Verse,

ometimesn

one

Word,

o

which

he whole

Beautyofthe

Thought

s

owing; nd

which

wonderfully

ffect s,for

no otherReason

but because

hey

re

Descriptions,

hat s,

mpress

lively mage

of somewhat

pon

the

Mind.

To

this

t is

that meta-

phorical

xpressions,

hen

elected

with

Judgement,we

their

eauty

and their legance; veryMetaphor eing short

escription.20

This

became

the

commonview

during

he

century.There

were

refinements

n

the

theory

s it

became

widespread, uch

as

these

in a later

handbook:

"

allusions

nd

similes

re

descriptionslaced

in an

opposite

point

of

view

.

.

.

and the

hyperbole s often

no

more

than

a

description

arried

beyond

the

bounds of

prob-

"'

Essay

on

the

Genius

and

Writings

f Pope

[1756],

(London, 1806), I,

40.

19

n his

"Apology

forHeroic

Poetry

and

Poetic

License,"

Works,V,

119.

This was

in 1674, two years earlierthan the Hobbes quotation in the OED-and a moreclear

use of the

meaning.

0

Lecture

on

Poetry,

rans.E.

Bowyer

(London,

1742), p.

103.

158

The

Origin

f

the Term

"Image






ability."1 Since

the term

mage

had

always

been

synonymous

with

description,

t took on this new

meaning

s well. When

Dr.

Johnson

peaks

of

the

"

exhausted

mages

of Milton's

Lycidas,

he

means

not

picturesbut

figures-the

trite

metaphors

of

the

pastoralelegy.

Extension f

the

termfrom

icture

or

description

o

metaphor

was not

after

ll

so

striking

change

n

the

eighteenth

entury,

for he

characteristic

metaphorical

orm

f the

period

was

proso-

popoeia,

personification.

n

The

Seasons,

for

xample,

he

device

is

everywhere.

rom

God on down

through he

Great

Chain,

all

links are

personified

y

Thomson:

abstractions, uch as

Virtue

and

Vice, are given human

form; nanimate

nature s animated

(rivers rage" and clouds " stagger ); and animatenatureis

raised

a

rank

and humanized

chickens,

r

"

feathery

eople,"

are

"

pensive

)

. Thomson

ven

employs device which

has not been

dignified

ith

name,but whichwe

might all

depersonification:

flowers

blush"

or

"

bare their

bosoms,"

but

girlsare

nearly

always

"blooming"; the

spider

s

diabolically

human,but a

fop

is

called

"

a gay

insect."

Critics

were

s fond f

this

type of mage

as were

poets.

Blair

appealed

to

human

nature, n

which,

he

thought, herewas " a wonderful roneness . . to animate all

objects

;

to

Campbell,

personification

ontributed o

"

vivacity

because "it

is

evident hat

things nimate

awaken greater

tten-

tion,

and make a

strongermpression

n the

mind, than

things

senseless."22

The

common ppeal

of

the

personification

asvisual:

instead of

an empty

bstraction

which

had been, at

some

prior

time,

abstracted

from

sense

mpression) ne

found

pleasing

picture

(which

struck

ne

directly n

the

senses).

This

picture-

metaphor

ould bestbe

defined y the

new

term

image."

The verbalmeans by whichmostpersonifications ereaccom-

plished

was that

of a

noun and

an

epithet. The

peculiarfascina-

tion of

eighteenth

enturypoets

for

the

epithet has

puzzled-

and

irritated-posterity.

rofessor

illotsonhas

shown

that the

diction

which

rritated

Wordsworth

the

"

finnyribe

or

"

fuzzy

race

")

has

the

very mportant

lassical

precedent nd can

evoke

a

sense

of the

Great

Chain

of

Being,

n

which

ach

animate ink

is a

race or

tribe;

as he

says,

we

still

use the

diction

"

heavenly

s

John

Newberry ?],

Art

of Poetry

on a New

Plan

(London,

1762), p.

43.

2

Lectures,p.

172;

Philosophy f

Rhetoric

1776]

(Philadelphia,

1818), p.

832.

Ray

Frazer

159






bodies."

8

Eighteenth

entury

riticsthemselves

nly

note

the

sensuous

ffect

f the well

chosen

pithet,

r its capacity

to

bring

out

the

"

essential

nature

of

the

substantive.

Joseph

Trapp,

forexample,

devotes

many

pages

to

highly

refined

istinctions:

some epithets dd " distinctdeas," someadd " Lightand Orna-

ment," ome

are

"generally

but

not

always

true,"

nd some

may

"always

be used." 4 Eighteenth

entury oetryhas

more

adjec-

tives

and fewer

erbs

than

the

poetry

of the

Renaissance,

s

the

studies

fProfessor

osephine

Miles have

shown;5

of theseadjec-

tives

or

epithets

a

good many

are metaphoric.

Considerable

creative nergy

was spentupon poetry

which eems o the

modern

reader

to be bland

or flat. Perhaps

the reason

for

this s that

a

metaphor eemsmoremetaphoricf t is a verb. Onlyverbmeta-

phors

carry he

sense

in

the fashion

ur new criticism dmires.

On

the

other

hand,

a

personification-noun

nd

epithet

n some

metaphoric

ombination-seems

more ike an

image

than

does a

metaphoric

erb.

We may

trace,

then,

wo of the

modern

meanings

f the

term

imageback

to the

Restoration r eighteenth

entury.There

was,

of

course,

an

etymological

asis

forthe meaning

of picture

or

imitation. xtension

f meaning rom

n appeal

tothe sight

o an

appeal to anyof thesensescomes from hesensationalistheories

of

Hobbes;

to the popularity

of

his

ideas is owing

the

greater

currency

f the term

mage.

Modern use of

the term

n this sense

is relatively

nambiguous,

ut one

occasionally

omes across

the

phrase

"

sensuous

magery,"

s though

there were

other

kinds.

The

figurative

meaning

f

mage,

which

temsfrom he defection

of rhetoricn theearlierperiod,

has provedto be

too general

for

some critical uses.

No one has

wished to

returnto the

more

refined ermsof rhetoric synechdoche,metonymy,atechresis,

allegoria,

nd so

on),

but

many

subtypesof images

have

been

proposed.

The metaphysical

onceit

of Donne has

recently

een

called

a

"

functionalmage,"

radical mage," dissonant

mage,"

and

"

conical

mage."

"Geoffrey illotson,

18th

Century

oetic

Diction,"Essays

and

Studiesof the

English

ssociation,

XV

(1939),

59-80.

Cf.

C.

V. Deane,

Aspects

f

he

18thCentury

Nature

oetry Oxford,935),p.

14.

" Lectures n Poetry, . 69ff. See Edward L. Surtz, . J., "Epithets n Pope's

Messiah,"

Q,

XXVII

(1948),

215.

2"

The

Continuityf

Poetic

Language Berkeleynd Los

Angeles, 951),p. 172.

160

The

Origir

of

the Term

"Image"






A third ense

of the

term, s

defining

he " real meaning"

of

the

anguageof

the poem,

has no

such

historical

rigin.

Professor

Kenner's assumption

hat

in

99 per

cent of what

one reads

the

words do not

mean

what they say

is

remarkably arallel

to the

ideas of Sprat and his contemporaries, ho also desireda dry,

hardand

natural

anguage,

but his

denomination

f

the other

ne

per

centas

"

images

can be traced

no

furtherack

than

Pound

or Hulme.

Pomona CoUege

Ray

Frazer

161

ray frazer. the origin of the term image

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